Here's my situation, I'm FBO minus DPs, but I'm still under CPO, so if my car has an issue that requires warranty work I'd need to go back to the OE downpipes. For obvious reasons I'd rather not have to spend upwards of a thousand dollars for the downpipe removal and then reinstallation after the work was done each time my car went in for service. Do you guys have any shops that have worked on your car and shown competence+good pricing? I'm in Montgomery County but i'm willing to drive a decent distance, so don't feel bound by that. Any and all suggestions are welcome, if you could please give me a rough price that would be great (PM if that works better). I want to go FBO, but at a certain point the cost of downpipe swapping would become too much to bear for something like new plugs at the stealership, and I don't have a lift so DIY is largely out of the equation. Thanks!

hmmmmm i would be willing to help, i dont have a lift but i should have all the tools to complete it.

1. Thank you for the offer, 'tis appreciated. I'm fairly handy in an N54 engine bay, but i've never done downpipes before.
2. The lift is the issue, I'm basically set on tools....but no lift. Esp. in this weather, i'm not particularly inclined to attempt downpipes for the first time on ramps.

DP's aren't hard..they're just tedious. Are there any DYI garages in your area where you can rent a lift?

That's the sense I get, not mechanically "difficult", just time consuming...I'm not sure about lifts you can rent TBH, I live near Bethesda which doesn't have good car shops for a lick, but maybe a bit farther out I can find something...My only fear is having a 3ish hour project turn into an 8 hour project due to any number of things not playing nice, every time I find myself in this cramped engine bay I feel like im playing twister Just last week I had to re-swap chargepipes, and getting the MAP sensor unplugged with that STUPID sound baffle thing blocking it was....frustrating.

Hmm..if you're in Bethesda you could make the 40-45 min drive to the reston area and there's a DIY shop down there you can rent a lift at. The first time you do it takes the longest. After that it gets easier and easier as you learn the tips n tricks to getting them in and out.

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But, if you're in bethesda and really don't want to do it. I believe Paul Yang lives close to you and does a lot of this kind of work for people for a reasonable rate.

Any way I can get in touch with Mr. Yang you know of? I'm going to talk to At Speed Motorsports and a few other well known Euro shops in the general region, a friend of mine who drives a 996TT takes his car there and has been a fan of their work and pricing for years. Thanks for the continued help everyone, I need to use the local subforum more...A good resource

Thanks for the links, from what i've heard you'll be very happy with At Speed, they're quite well known in the Pcar community around here. Basically if I can get this downpipe installed for $300 or less i'll pull the trigger, if it's more than that I'm just not stomaching $600 bucks every time my car needs to go in to the dealer for something. I'm going with AR or Macht Schnell so hopefully with perfect fitment these guys could take care of it pretty quickly. The DIY route on a rented lift in interesting, but i'm still not wild about the potential issues that could crop up. Every time I work on this car things end up taking longer than I had planned, I can totally see that turning a DP install into a 6 hour back breaker the first time I do it.

Thanks for the links, from what i've heard you'll be very happy with At Speed, they're quite well known in the Pcar community around here. Basically if I can get this downpipe installed for $300 or less i'll pull the trigger, if it's more than that I'm just not stomaching $600 bucks every time my car needs to go in to the dealer for something. I'm going with AR or Macht Schnell so hopefully with perfect fitment these guys could take care of it pretty quickly. The DIY route on a rented lift in interesting, but i'm still not wild about the potential issues that could crop up. Every time I work on this car things end up taking longer than I had planned, I can totally see that turning a DP install into a 6 hour back breaker the first time I do it.

Yea I think Derek was gonna charge me like ~$300. I might get a quote from AT Speed when I talk to them again

Yea I think Derek was gonna charge me like ~$300. I might get a quote from AT Speed when I talk to them again

Right, and that shows the fundamental problem I'm facing. $300 seems like a reasonable price viewed in a vaccum, but since i'd be swapping them out every time for dealer service, that's $600 a pop...I could easily imagine the car being at the dealer 5 times in a year, I'm not interested in dropping $3K just for CPO work. If you do get a quote from At Speed please pass it along if you're OK with that, thanks dude

Right, and that shows the fundamental problem I'm facing. $300 seems like a reasonable price viewed in a vaccum, but since i'd be swapping them out every time for dealer service, that's $600 a pop...I could easily imagine the car being at the dealer 5 times in a year, I'm not interested in dropping $3K just for CPO work. If you do get a quote from At Speed please pass it along if you're OK with that, thanks dude

Quoted me about $600. And my car is apparently fixed - cost me $937 to do a diagnosis and replace 1 injector...

Jeez that ain't cheap, but the quality of their work is VERY good, so there is that. I'm going to tag team the downpipe install with Adam (clem on E9x post) next week, well actually I'm probably going to bug him with mechanical questions while he installs lol. In your case, did they just end up replacing cyl 6 injector?

Jeez that ain't cheap, but the quality of their work is VERY good, so there is that. I'm going to tag team the downpipe install with Adam (clem on E9x post) next week, well actually I'm probably going to bug him with mechanical questions while he installs lol. In your case, did they just end up replacing cyl 6 injector?

Yea replaced #6. The shop I went to first in my area replaced all spark plugs as well (they needed to be changed), and an oil change (as well as the oil catch can clean out; had about an ounce of oil in it).

I'm still going to go to my buddy at Innovative for that install and the IC piping. He does good work and is not pricey....as much as I have had done over there including my brothers cars, seems like the best idea. I know what he can do, and his prices are resonable